<p>Hello so I need some serious advice and others opinions on what I should do with my major. I graduated from college in 2009 and went to a community college to study performing arts. I've played the violin since I was six and never had any private lessons. I always played in my local and school orchestras and pit orchestra and was even first chair for 4 years. I've always had a love for movie soundtracks and my dream was to play my instrument for movies. When I started classes, I took classes like music theory and harmony. I'm not good with theory and I kind realize that music maybe wasn't for me. My family and I moved and I took a year off school. I applied to a university and changed my major to tourism management because I want to travel some day. Then I changed to Hospitality. I didn't like my classes because i'm not someone who's interested in bushiness. I've always been surrounded by music and theater. So I changed that theater. I realized I had to perform in front of the stage and other the years my fear of performing on stage or public speaking grew. I always had this fear but it wasn't as bad. I think not playing on stage for a while made it worse. well anyways, I then changed my major to art history and honestly i'm miserable. All I think about is music and wanting to play again. I keep changing my major to find something that I'm interested in and i cant seem to find it. so it's 2014 and I'm still in school and I don't know what to do. I'm looking at other music schools to see their audition requirements. Which would be for violin, Paganini caprices, Bach partitas and sonatas etc. Now, I've never had private lessons so I'm not really good at double stops. well anyways I need help. I'm learning music theory on my own but i really want to play. Please don't judge me, I just want to hear what you guys think. Thank you :)</p>
<p>What do you want to do with a degree in violin performance? (BTW I would ask the same thing of Art History or any other degree—you are far enough along in life that you need to focus on the practical aspects of making a living)</p>
<p>HI violinplayer. Your college career sounds like my life, so I certainly won’t judge. I have to say you seem to have done pretty well without private lessons, and I think you must love playing music to have come so far. If you have problems with double stops, though, I don’t think you want to try for violin performance–I think that train has left the station. My suggestion: think long and hard about what you’d like to do as a career (to make money). Think about your non-musical strengths and interests. Talk to as many people in that field as you can, so you know all that the job entails. You can still pursue your music as a hobby. There are many outlets for amateur musicians, like community and partly-professional orchestras (depending upon where you live.) You might also try connecting with the local music scene. Maybe you can get some gigs playing jazz violin or fiddling with a folk group. You didn’t really indicated what type of music you like.</p>
<p>I wish I could be optimistic, if this post is sincere (and I will assume it is), if you are thinking of getting into a classical performance program with the kind of background you have on the violin, I can pretty much tell you that it is extremely improbable. Violin requires years of dedicated study and practice to get into any auditioned program that is worth going into, and it only gets more difficult in the ‘real world’. The people in professional pit orchestras, who do movie soundtrack music (what is left of that) and so forth, or more non traditional things like gig work, has incredible competition by people who have had the training. There is a world of difference from being a decent school musician in high school (which was years ago) to being at the level to have hopes of studying it or even making it in music. There is nothing wrong with picking up the instrument again and taking lessons, many colleges have music programs where non majors can take lessons and so forth, and there are community orchestras and the like if you want to make music, and I highly encourage that…but to make it as a violinist, even unconventionally, given your background and age is for all intents and purposes a non starter, it is a world I know very well.To be honest, you also might be looking back at music you did in high school, which you enjoyed, as I did, and thinking it might be neat…music was tough when I was growing up as a profession, almost 2 generations ago, and today it is orders of magnitude more competitive and hard then it was back then, especially on violin that borders at times on the insane. </p>
<p>I wish I could suggest what else to do. In theory, you go to college to find what you want to do, is there anything that interests you from the courses you have taken? One of the reasons for the core courses/general courses is to let you find what you want to do. What you do should come from that, and again I suspect your desire to try music is coming from grasping at something from your past, rather than being what you want to really do, I suspect if you saw how difficult music performance is, what the students go through, it wouldn’t be as attractive. Like I said, it is a world I know, as I do what it was like doing music in high school, and they are two very,very different things, I promise you, when I saw the reality of what it meant to be a serious music student it was eye opening (ie shocked the <favorite euphemism=""> out of me)…</favorite></p>
<p>I wish you luck, one thought might be instead of going to school like you are, maybe take some time off, work at different things and see if anything hits home with you and then go back to school. </p>
<p>I agree with musicprnt. It’s great to love music but realistically, even those with 10-15 years of training have to compete against other equally talented and well trained kids for places in performance programs. Once in, the work load is extraordinary and includes the study of music theory and music history and orchestra repertoire. They are learning their own rep while also playing in at least one chamber group and orchestra and much of what is played is far more difficult than what you are playing now.
If you were originally studying music in your community college, how is it that you weren’t enrolled in private lessons there? I’m sure that there are teachers in your area you could study with and if you want to improve, that’s a must. Is there a community music school around? They can suggest a teacher and perhaps have groups that you could be a part of so that you can play again.</p>
<p>You already have a college degree, so no going back to get another one. I know of people who got a degree in something else and then got a masters on an instrument, but they already knew the music theory well and were performing. It is possible to study theory on your own and private lessons on your own, then get a masters at a lesser-known university. At least that can be done on an instrument such as oboe–someone with more experience with violin may tell you otherwise.</p>
<p>I agree with the other posters–think about what you want to do with music. Perhaps it does not require a degree. After all, there are many famous musicians in non-classical settings who did not get music degrees. You don’t need a music degree in order to perform–you just have to be able to perform and create a setting in which to do it.</p>
<p>My daughter’s regular piano accompanist didn’t study music, and didn’t start practicing piano seriously until age 45. Ten years later, she is a full-time accompanist. But you can’t accompany on violin like you can on piano.</p>
<p>The movie recordings you hear and see are now for the most part done in places like Eastern Europe, not in the United States. It has been “out-sourced”. At least on woodwinds, there are very few people who can count on performing with the motion-picture industry full-time.</p>
<p>If however you are happy to perform in community orchestras for little or no pay, you should have some opportunities.</p>